Others worry that employee’s may have to sacrifice family time to be at work.

“I feel for the workers who have to go in, instead of being with their families,” Jonathan Delvalle said to CBS 4 News.

Macy’s said it is giving their employees the ‘option’ of doing a Thanksgiving night shift.

But other retail workers aren’t so lucky and some have gone online to express their frustrations.

At the website CHANGE.ORG, there are dozens of petitions protesting Thanksgiving Day store openings.

One signer writes, “Employees deserve to be with their families on Thanksgiving.”

Another said, “It’s unfair to ask your employees to sacrifice even more of their Thanksgiving for a cash grab.”

At the Christmas Palace, which sells everything Christmas from trees to ornaments, workers have been manning the cash registers for two decades.

Bill Merrill who manages the Ft. Lauderdale store said Thanksgiving signals the start of holiday decorating.

“It’s the beginning of a weekend that’s very exciting. We have people at home eating and cooking and people here shopping. By 4 o’clock we’re all going home. For us dinner is 5 o’clock!”

That’s about the time eager shoppers will be gearing up to head to Macy’s, as well as other stores, looking for bargains and retailers hope—they come to shop til’ they drop plenty of cash.

Joan Murray

Joan Murray is an award winning reporter who joined CBS Miami in August 2001 shortly before the September 11th attacks. She was among the first to report the South Florida connection to the terrorists.
In her many years reporting in South Florida...